Sarah Miles

Sarah Miles
Miles in the 1966 film Blowup
Born	(1941-12-31) 31 December 1941 Ingatestone, Essex, England, UK
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1961–2004
Spouse(s)	Robert Bolt 1967–1975 (divorced), 1988–1995 (remarried until his death; 1 child)

Sarah Miles (born 31 December 1941) is an English theatre and film actress. Her best known films include The Servant (1963), Blowup (1966), Ryan's Daughter (1970) and Hope and Glory (1987).

Life and career

Sarah Miles was born in the small town of Ingatestone, Essex, in South East England; her brother is film director, producer and screenwriter Christopher Miles. Miles's parents were Clarice Vera Remnant and Frank Remnant. Through her maternal grandfather Francis Remnant, Miles claims to be the great-granddaughter of Prince Francis of Teck (1870–1910) and thus a second cousin once removed of Elizabeth II.^[1][2]

Unable to speak until the age of 9 because of a stammer^[3] and dyslexia,^[4] she attended Roedean, and three other schools, but was expelled from all of them.^[3] Miles enrolled at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) at the age of 15. Shortly after finishing at RADA, Miles debuted as Shirley Taylor, a "husky wide-eyed nymphet"^[5] in Term of Trial (1962), which featured Laurence Olivier; she was nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Newcomer. Soon afterwards, Miles had a role as "Vera from Manchester" in Joseph Losey's The Servant (1963), and "thrust sexual appetite into British films" according to David Thomson.^[5] She gained another BAFTA nomination, this time as Best Actress. She had a "peripheral" part in Michelangelo Antonioni's Blowup (1966).^[5] a director she thought (at his death in 2007) was "a rogue and a tyrant and a brilliant man".^[6]

After acting in a several plays from 1966 to 1969, Miles was cast as Rosy in the leading title role of David Lean's Ryan's Daughter (1970). It was critically savaged, which discouraged Lean from making a film for some years, despite Miles' performance gaining her an an Oscar nomination and an Oscar win for John Mills, and the film making a substantial profit. In Terence Pettigrew's biography of Trevor Howard, Miles describes the filming of Ryan's Daughter in Ireland in 1969. She recalls, "My main memory is of sitting on a hilltop in a caravan at six in the morning in the rain. There was no other actor or member of the crew around me. I would sit there getting mad, waiting for either the rain to stop or someone to arrive. Film-acting is so horrifically belittling."^[7]

On 11 February 1973, while filming The Man Who Loved Cat Dancing, David Whiting, briefly one of her lovers,^[8] was found dead in her motel room. She was charged and acquitted of culpability in his death.^[3][9] Miles later commented: "It went on for six months. Murder? Suicide? Murder! Suicide! Murder! Suicide! And, gradually, the truth came out, which I'm not going to speak about, but it certainly wasn't me. I had actually saved the man from three suicide attempts so why would I want to murder him? I really can't imagine."^[3]

Her performance as Anne Osborne in The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea (1976) was nominated for a Golden Globe. Interviewer Lynn Barber wrote of Miles' appearances in Hope and Glory, White Mischief and her two earliest films that she "has that Vanessa Redgrave quality of seeming to have one skin fewer than normal people, so that the emotion comes over unmuffled and bare."^[4]

Filming White Mischief on location in Kenya in 1987, Miles worked for the second and last time with Trevor Howard, who had a supporting role but was by then seriously ill with a drink problem. The company wanted to fire him, but Miles was determined that Howard's distinguished film career wouldn't end on a sour note. In an interview with Terence Pettigrew for his biography of Howard, she describes how she gave an ultimatum to the executives, threatening to quit the production if they got rid of him. The gamble worked. Howard was kept on. It was to be his last major film. He died the following January.

She most recently appeared in Well at the Trafalgar Studios and the Apollo Theatre opposite Natalie Casey.^{[citation needed]}

Personal life and family

Miles was married twice to the British playwright Robert Bolt, 1967–1975 and 1988–1995.^[10] He wrote and directed the film Lady Caroline Lamb, in which Miles played the eponymous heroine. After his stroke, the couple reunited and Miles cared for him. "I would be dead without her", Bolt said in 1987, "When she's away, my life takes a nosedive. When she returns, my life soars."^[11] The couple had a son Tom, who is now a watch dealer.^[12]

Miles drinks a small cup of her own urine every day.^[13] She has followed the tradition for more than thirty years, saying that it has kept her healthy and vigorous.^[3][14][15]

Filmography

Television

Books

Sarah Miles has written the following books:

• A Right Royal Bastard, ISBN 0-330-33142-6
• Beautiful Mourning, ISBN 0-7528-0140-6
• Bolt from the Blue, ISBN 0-7538-0229-5
• Serves Me Right, ISBN 0-333-60141-6

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Sarah Miles.

• Sarah Miles at the Internet Movie Database
• Interview with Sarah Miles